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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26854918">Enter Sandman</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood'>aravenwood</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hawaii Five-0 (2010)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Hurt Danny "Danno" Williams, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Torture, Self-Harm, Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:09:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,002</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26854918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny has never been a fan of heavy metal music. It’s nothing personal, but he likes to listen to music that’s quiet and calm, music that will help him to wind down after a hectic and stressful day.</p><p>But now…now, he hates it, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to hear an electric guitar or bass drum without dropping to the floor, clutching his ears and sobbing.</p><p>Written for Whumptober 2020 for the prompt "stop, please".</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve McGarrett &amp; Danny "Danno" Williams</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947343</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Enter Sandman</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello! It's been a little while since I've written for this fandom but I had a scenario in my head and Danno was my first choice. And I had just as much fun writing him as always!</p><p>Trigger warnings in this one for self-harm, it isn't graphic but just watch yourselves!</p><p>Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Danny has never been a fan of heavy metal music. It’s nothing personal, but he likes to listen to music that’s quiet and calm, music that will help him to wind down after a hectic and stressful day.</p><p>But now…now, he hates it, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to hear an electric guitar or bass drum without dropping to the floor, clutching his ears and sobbing.</p><p>He has no idea how long they’ve had him here - days, weeks, months? - and the music never seems to stop. It’s always the same song too; Enter Sandman by Metallica, up at full volume with no respite between repetitions. He’s forgotten what silence feels like, forgotten what it’s like to sleep instead of pass out from exhaustion. His entire body is shaking, and he’s sure that if it keeps up the way it has been he’s going to start to fall apart at the seams.</p><p>No one has entered his cell since his torture began, not even to bring something to eat or drink. He doesn’t feel hungry or thirsty, but maybe that’s because he’s thrown up so many times from stress and pain that his body has given up suggesting that he eat. And anyway, it’s not like he’d be able to have anything they brought him; his hands are cuffed to a pipe at his back, the chain between them so short that practically all of his mobility has been cut off.</p><p>Bastards, he thinks. If they want to kill him, why can’t they just get it over with?</p><p>But then he remembers a drunken night in with Steve. They’d been watching an action movie, something so boring that he can’t even remember the name of it, and there had been a scene in which a friend of the protagonist was tortured for information. He was beaten with fists and with pipes, shocked with batons, held under bathtubs filled with icy water until he drowned, only to be revived and forced straight back under. And then, after he grew lethargic and barely able to hold his head up, they locked him in a white room and blared music into the cell. At the time, Danny didn’t really get it until Steve explained it to him - they were stopping him from being able to sleep or even think. It left him so tired and frazzled that he would do anything to make it stop - but by the time he cracked, the bad guys already knew everything they needed to know. By then, they were just doing it for fun.</p><p>Danny is afraid that that’s what’s happening now - that they’re toying with him. And he’s not sure how much more of this he can take.</p><p>As the song comes to an end only to go right back to the start, he can’t stop the whimper which bursts forth from his lips. He curls forwards, his head bowed and his teeth gritted as he takes several shuddering breaths to stop himself from crying again. Would this be as bad, he wonders, if they hadn’t decided to go the extra mile and tape the fucking headphones to his ears? What if they’d used speakers instead? Would he be able to block out the noise at all, even just by pressing one ear at a time against his shoulders? Right now, he’ll take anything but what is actually happening to him.</p><p>“Please stop,” he whispers as the song reaches its chorus. He’s no longer holding back tears, just letting himself break down for what feels like the twentieth time. He wishes he were dead, wishes that someone would come and ask him something, <em>anything</em>, just so that he can do something to make this stop.</p><p>But no one comes, and the music doesn’t stop.</p><p>Is this what a nervous breakdown feels like, he wonders several plays later. He’s crying so hard he’s hyperventilating, rocking himself back and forth like it’ll make the pain stop. “Stop!” he says again, louder this time. At least, he thinks it’s louder - he can’t hear his own voice but his throat does ache as he speaks.</p><p>The music doesn’t stop.</p><p>“STOP! PLEASE, MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!” he screams and throws his head back against the concrete wall so hard that stars explode in his vision and for a blessed few seconds, the music is muffled and hard to make out through the ringing in his ears.</p><p>For those few seconds, he can breathe again, and then it’s just as loud as ever.</p><p>He hits his head again. And again. And again. He needs the quiet, please he can’t take it any more he just needs it all to stop-.</p><p>Somewhere around the fifth or sixth hit, the world goes black.</p><p>–</p><p>When he comes to, the music is gone and his hands are no longer restrained. There’s someone calling his name, and he can’t help but flinch at the volume of it. “Just…shut up,” he whispers, and weirdly it works. He focuses on his breathing and on the fact that he can hear it.</p><p>No one speaks, but a calloused hand touches his cheek. He hasn’t been touched in quite a while, and he suddenly remembers how nice it feels. “Steve,” he breathes, because he’d know that hand anywhere.</p><p>A second hand, just as rough and calloused as the first, grips his wrist and squeezes it.</p><p>Danny pries his eyes open and finds himself looking up at his partner, who’s looming over him and staring like he was sure they would never see each other again. He looks exhausted, eyes hooded and bloodshot from lack of sleep - Danny wonders if he looks that bad himself.</p><p>“You found me,” he says. “Coulda come sooner, ya big doof.”</p><p>Steve flinches and guilt flashes in his eyes.</p><p>“But…you found me. Thanks for that.”</p><p>The hand on his wrist tightens again, and Danny allows himself to pass out once more in the blessed silence he was sure that he would never hear again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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